No Place Like Home

It had always been a disaster from the start.

Kate's life had begun fairly calm and peaceful. Born to an ambitious mother and a diligent father, Kate's future had shimmered vividly before she'd taken her first steps. The family was stable, loving and seemingly perfect in every way. But it was nearing three years of Kate's life when she gained a sibling, then another, then another, then another as the years went by and it didn't stop there. By the time Kate was one year shy of turning eighteen, she'd had seven siblings on her tail.

She should have been overjoyed; being an only child came with isolation and loneliness but everything had a limit. In truth, she had become the mother of children she'd never bargained for more often than not. That many children in one house gave way to frenzied school mornings, Kate's non-existent privacy and uncountable trips to the grocery shops on the grounds of food disappearing at alarming rates. A day didn't go by where a squabble hadn't erupted or an object hadn’t been upended or smashed. Sometimes, Kate would bear witness to screaming matches that wouldn’t cease reaching her ears unless she set music blaring throughout her room. She’d wished she could be anywhere else but her own home then.

In her teenage years, like most her age, she’d contemplated inviting a few friends to the house. She’d dared to try but as expected, her siblings always got in the way. Kate could barely hold a decent conversation without a child nagging her for more food, help in a math problem or practising mere mischief in the house. She didn’t blame her friends when they couldn’t contain their eagerness to depart her abode, she would have gladly left with them if given the chance. Her social life had begun to shrink. The tether that connected her with the dwindling friends she already had would snap soon enough. There were no shopping sprees, lunch dates or parties for Kate. Every aspect of her life included one sibling or the other if not all.

Having entrepreneurial and hardworking parents didn’t help her case.  Since they were barely around, they’d hire a child carer during Kate’s school hours but the moment she’d step foot in the house, the dishevelled girl would bound out the house without a glance back. They said money didn’t grow on trees; it was finite, especially with eight children to support. They couldn’t waste any for more hours of a carer’s service when they had their eldest child capable of the job. Kate couldn’t counter that.

The ability to concentrate was a rarity that Kate indulged in whenever possible. Her room, which wasn’t really her room, offered little reprieve. Having one of her own would have offered the solution of locking herself in, but when she had to share it with two others, there was not a chance. She hadn’t expected bathrooms to be her favourite part of the house.

Homework that should have taken minutes took hours. Revision for a test had to be done well into the night in search of a moment of silence which consequently led to the loss of sleep. Not to mention stationary that mysteriously disappeared and notebooks that suffered the same fate but showed up half torn apart, sporting nonsensical scribbles.

Kate had lost her cool more times than she can remember. Her parents weren’t helping yet again. They’re children; her mother would say too many times to deem it a plausible defence. Surely children knew right and wrong to some extent, surely they knew when they caused someone torment. When Kate would try to exert her own show of discipline, it never turned out well. A little slap on the arm to stave off a sneaky hand earned her a deafening wail and a scold from either parent. She would try bribes but her siblings would demand too much and when she escalated to threats, they were too smart for their own good to fall for them. It was maddening.

Her parents hadn’t seemed bothered by the disarray ever-present in the house, but of course, they were the ones who’d had all these children. Kate would wonder what her parents were thinking when they decided to have eight kids or perhaps she didn’t want to know. Whatever the reason, they hadn’t planned for it. Their earnings were stretched thin. As a result, Kate had never had the luxury to buy whatever she wanted. Vacations were once in a lifetime. Kate was often goaded over not possessing certain brands of clothing or gadgets. Sharing was a regular practice in the household, from rooms to dinner plates at times, especially seeing the rate at which fragile objects slipped off hands.

Above all was the noise. The house was only ever silent at night. But even then, the cool darkness was punctuated with coughs or the occasional sleep talk or the bathroom trips that included slamming doors, noisy business and the splash of water. The youngest of her siblings couldn’t talk without shouting and adding onto that their short-tempered tendencies, a cacophonous incident was inevitable. The house during the day with the whole family present was much like branches scratching a car window, ceaselessly. Kate would often find herself going to bed with a throbbing headache that pressed on her eyelids and made her want to throw her head against a wall.

She couldn’t tolerate her family; she couldn’t tolerate her siblings most of all. It had gotten to the point that any thought of them brought a sour taste in her mouth. She was barely keeping her head above water at school. While at home, her time was occupied by managing children that shouldn’t have been her responsibility. It was an understatement to say she was glad to be nearing the end of her high-school life. College represented a different place, different people to surround herself with, most importantly; it was far away from her family.

Determination to get away was what had driven Kate to stretch herself to the limit and scrape a passing grade on her last year. Then it was time for college, she had done it.

The day she was set to leave, all her siblings had clung to her, delivering their teary farewells. Kate couldn’t bring herself to cry along with them, not when these very children had made nearly her whole life unbearable.

Then in a day’s time, she was miles away. The drastic changed had staggered her. She’d been assigned a dorm all to her own and Kate couldn’t contain her joy. She finally had her won space. She wouldn’t have to hide her possessions or stack them at the highest places she could find in order to keep them out of reach of impish hands. She could also maintain friendships for she now had the time to enjoy walks in the streets and slip into cafes with her friends and giggle and gossip. Most of all, she didn’t have to wait for night-time to find some semblance of silence. In her dorm, the stark serenity was perpetual.

With these changes, several weeks passed and Kate was making the most of her freedom. But along with that, she couldn’t deny the moments when bleakness would seep into her. She would come across a particular program on her little TV set and remember how her siblings would huddle together on one couch to enjoy their favourite show. She would cook a preferred dish of hers and remember how the rest of her siblings would fight over it to get their share. Little things like certain words, colours or actions would shoot memories into her to the point she began missing her family.

All these years she’d focused on the misdeeds committed by her family and they were no trivial things, they’d caused her so many problems. But beneath all that, there were moments that had made her truly happy. The way they had assigned Saturday nights for movie nights and they’d collect all sorts of meagre snacks to eat while they sat on the carpeted floor, eyes glued to the TV screen. Or when her siblings entertained her with ridiculous stories of their school days when she was stressed. Or even when she never had to do anything alone, be it while taking a walk or dancing or playing a board game. Here, in college, the friends she had acquired only ever had time to gossip then go back to studying, so most of Kate’s time was spent in her dorm, alone. She suddenly couldn’t wait for Christmas break.

By the time it did reach Christmas, Kate was consumed with longing to be amongst her family again. She didn’t fit into this new world anymore. No matter how hard she tried, her friends didn’t enjoy the same food or movies or activities she did. Soon enough she’d become an outcast and she didn’t possess the energy to act like anything but herself. And at that moment in her life, she realized no one in this world could understand her like her family did.

For this reason, she’d plastered a genuine smile on her face on the day she returned to her family at the airport. They’d all come for her, all her seven siblings and her parents and she had broken into tears and clutched all of them in her arms because these were the people she belonged with. Despite the years of torment, they’d helped her see that she could survive any obstacle thrown at her; they’d helped her get stronger. Her family was her sanctuary and there was no place like home.